Jackson Browne

Have a favorite Jackson Browne song? Call it out at his show Tuesday night. He doesn’t mind.

The 64-year-old rock singer isn’t crazy about making out set lists for his shows. When fans call out a request between songs, Browne is happy to indulge them.

“I welcome it, really,” Browne said during a phone interview. “Sometimes there are some good suggestions in there. In concerts there’s kind of a space between us, an open area between the audience and me, and the songs sort of come into that space. There’s room for a certain kind of interaction. When the audience knows you’re doing something you weren’t planning, it’s a very different feeling.”

But you don’t need to yell “The Pretender!” He’s going to do “The Pretender.” If you request a song like “The Naked Ride Home” you’re more likely to spark Browne’s imagination.

Browne said he prefers playing 2,000-3,000 capacity venues like the Civic Center. It’s festival season, and he’s sometimes playing for larger crowds, but Browne said a space like the Civic Center is where something magical can happen.

“In a room that size, there’s the possibility of getting right to the most death-defying, silence-enveloped moment,” Browne said. “It doesn’t always happen, because the audience is kind of the co-pilot for the thing. When people call for the right songs at the right time, amazing things happen.

“There’s an excitement in that. The people I’m playing with, we’re always adjusting songs and playing things a little different. We don’t play it in a perfect way, or strive to get it perfect. I know guys who do that, and it’s not very exciting. To get it note perfect isn’t my objective. What was it Voltaire said? ‘Perfect is the enemy of good.’ ”

So the songs you hear on Tuesday might not sound the same way they did on “For Everyman” or “Late for the Sky.” Browne said that over the years he’s become influenced by other people’s takes on his songs. His version of “These Days” is equal parts Browne, Gregg Allman and Nico. Browne wrote the song at 16, and at 64 the closing line “I’ll stop my dreaming” doesn’t appeal to him anymore. These days Browne sings “I’ll keep on moving, things are bound to be improving.”

“The interesting thing about singing songs written so long ago is that in some cases they turn out to mean more, quite a bit more with the passing of time. And in some cases, I can’t sing them at all.”

But Browne said the worst that can happen is he doesn’t do a request. He’s under no obligation to do so. Browne knows there are plenty of fans who would be happy if he just stuck to the hits and repeated the same set list every night. But when an audience shows a desire for something deeper than the hits, it’s a special feeling for the singer.

“In some cases, people call for songs that I haven’t sung in years. I’ll try to sort of summon those songs. It’s a renewing experience to sing a song you’ve been asked to sing. Anything can happen. We kind of started calling this the ‘I’ll Do Anything’ tour.”